So as I trolled back into the living room, I was prepared to see guy stuff. Balled-up sweat socks, maybe, or a half-empty can of Pabst or a bottle of 312, or whatever Catcher drank.
I wasn't prepared for an empty room . . . that had been filled with furniture only a little while ago.
"Holy shit," I swore, hands on my hips as I surveyed the room. "Mal," I called out. "Come here! I think you were robbed!"
But how could they have moved out an entire roomful of furniture and knickknacks - and without our knowing it?
"Look up!"
"Seriously - come here! I'm not kidding!"
"Merit!" she yelled back. "Just flippin' look up."
I did.
My mouth dropped.
"Holy shit."
The room had gone completely Poltergeist. All of the furniture - from couch to end table to entertainment console and television - was on the ceiling. Everything was in its place, but everything was upside down. It was like standing beneath the looking glass - a mirror image of what had been here before. It was also as if gravity took a vacation. I saw the tiny black book Mallory wanted, but it was stuck to the top (bottom?) of the coffee table that was now perched a few feet above my head.
"I guess I could jump for it," I murmured with a small smile, then instinctively glanced back toward the door. She stood in the doorway, arms over her chest, one ankle crossed over the other, a supremely smug smile on her face.
"You know, you look just like Catcher when you stand like that." Mallory, this girl who'd mooted gravity, stuck out her tongue at me.
"I guess you learned a few things."
She shrugged, then pushed off the door.
"How did you do it?" I asked, walking around, head tipped up as I moved across the room, to survey what she'd done.
"First Key," she said. "Power. There are energies in the universe that act on all of us. I moved the energies, spun the currents a little, and the universe shifted itself." Well, I guess Ethan had been partly right. "So it's like the Force?"
"That's not a bad analogy, actually."
My best friend could cause the universe to shift. So much for my being a badass. "That is just . . .
splendiferous."
She chuckled, but then screwed up her face. "The problem is, I'm not very good at getting it back down again."
"So what are you going to do? Leave it for Catcher?"
"Dear God, no. He's already fixed it three times this week. I'll just give it the old college try." She cleared her throat and lifted her arms, then glanced back at me. "You may want to get out of the way. It can get a little messy."
I took the warning to heart, then hightailed it to the threshold between the living room and the dining room, where I turned back around to watch. Mallory closed her eyes, and her hair lifted as if she'd put a hand on a Tesla coil. I felt my own ponytail lift as energy swirled through the air, as strong as the currents and eddies in a river.
"It's just a matter," Mallory said, "of shifting the currents." I looked up. The furniture began to vibrate, then bobble on its feet, the vibration of all those marching bits of furniture sending down a light shower of plaster.
"This is the hard part," she said.
"You can do it."
Like a marching band at halftime, the pieces began to march in little lines around the ceiling. I watched in awe as the love seat followed the couch, which followed a side table around in a circle and then, after a little bob, onto the sidewall. Gravity had no more effect there than it had on the ceiling, and the furniture began to move, Fantasia-like, down the walls and toward the baseboards.
"Tricky, tricky," she said as the furniture stepped down onto the floor again.
I glanced back at Mallory. Her outstretched arms, shaking with the effort, shone with sweat. I'd seen her like this before, one of the first times I'd seen her work her magic. We'd been at a rave sight at the time, and she'd offered up a prophecy. But it had taken a lot out of her, and she'd slept in the car on the way home.
This looked a lot like that - with much heavier consequences.
"Mal? Do you need some help?"
"I'll get it," she bit out, and the furniture continued its dance, the floor now vibrating beneath us as it marched back into place.
"Uh-oh," she said.
"Uh-oh?" I repeated, then took a step backward. "I don't like the sound of 'uh-oh.' "
"I think I'm kicking up dust."
I managed to mutter a curse before she sneezed and the rest of the stuff on the ceiling crashed to the ground. Luckily, the electronics had already made their way down. But the rest of the stuff that I could see, after I'd waved a hand at the dust she'd kicked up, was in a shambles.
"Mal?"
"I'm okay," she said, then appeared through the fog of plaster and dust that had accumulated over the twenty years her aunt had lived in the brownstone. She stood by me and turned around, and we surveyed the damage. There was a snowfall of knickknacks on the ground - kittens and porcelain roses and other items purchased by Mal's aunt on one of her television shopping network sprees. The sofa had successfully finished the journey right-side-up, but the love seat stood precariously on its side. The bookcase was facedown, but the books were stacked in tidy piles beside it.
"Hey, the books look nice."
"Watch it, smartass."
I bit back a snicker that threatened to bubble up, and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing.
"I'm still learning," she said.
"Even vampires need practice," I supportively added.
"No shit, since Celina batted you around like you were Tom to her Jerry." I slid her a sideways - and none too friendly - glance.
"What?" she asked with a shrug. "So Celina likes to play with her food."
"At least Celina didn't destroy Cadogan House in the process."
"Oh, yeah? Check this." She stomped - literally, stomped - back to the kitchen, moved around the island, and pulled open the long drawer that held my chocolate stash.
She reached in and, her eyes still on me, moved a hand through my treasure trove until she pulled out a long paper-wrapped bar of gourmet dark chocolate. Grinning evilly at her bounty, she held it before her with both hands, then ripped a corner off the packaging.
"That's one of my favorites," I warned her.
"Oh, is it?" she asked, then used her teeth to snap off a giant corner of the bar.
"Mallory! That's just hateful."
"Sometimes, a woman needs to hate," was what I thought she said over a mouthful of seventy-three percent dark chocolate that I'd been able to find only at a tiny shop near U of C. On the other hand, I'd done without for this long. . . .